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When the women’s field took off at a 5:20 per mile pace at the 2024 Boston Marathon on Monday, Des Linden knew that the 2:20 marathon pace was too hot. So, despite saying pre-race she looked forward to running with people, the 2018 Boston Marathon champ settled into her own solo groove.
That rhythm found her reattached to the 20-person lead pack at the halfway mark, just in time to charge to the lead controlled by a grinning Emma Bates, who was high-fiving fans while running through the famous Wellesley “scream tunnel.”
“I knew I was at the front, and I just wanted to check in and see if there was anything I could do,” Linden said. “I knew when I was detached that it was going to be me running by myself for a lot of it, so I was like, ‘Can I contribute to what you’re doing? And then go back to running by myself.’”
Linden’s presence at the front flipped the switch. The front runners kicked into high gear, and Linden, job done, once again fell back. That act of selflessness serves as a thru-line not only for Linden and her performances on these fabled roads, but for the Boston Marathon as a whole.
“If I didn’t feel the love and support of the crowd and the city and the event and all the organizers, this is just too hard to keep coming back, particularly at this age,” Linden, 40, said. “When I’m out there running by myself for 24 of 26 miles, you’ve got to really love it. This is the event that’s going to be hard to let go of at some point.”
In the greatest sports city in the world, the Boston Marathon reflects and reifies the power of sport, the flaws and also the goodness of humanity, like no other event.
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Bigger Than Self
Linden’s act of selflessness on Monday harkens back to her performance here six years ago. In 2018, driving rain and heavy wind gusts exceeding 25 miles per hour plummeted temperatures to a real feel of 29 degrees Fahrenheit and compounded for the most grueling conditions in history. Frozen, miserable, and convinced she was going to drop out, Linden surged to the lead and asked Shalane Flanagan, who had just won the 2021 New York City Marathon six months previously, how she could be of service.
We all know what happened after that. Flanagan stopped to use the bathroom, and Linden tried to slow down the lead pack until Flanagan could regroup. While that attempt proved futile, Linden went on not only to stay in the race, but to win it in 2:39:54, becoming the first American woman to break the tape in 33 years.
Once again, her good deed did not prove mutually exclusive from a good performance. Linden’s patience and consistency found her charging past runners at the front who struggled over the Newton Hills, and Linden finished in 2:28:27 for 16th—her 11th top-20 finish and just behind the top two Americans Bates (12th, 2:27:14) and Sara Hall (15th, 2:27:58).
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Bates, who was fifth here as the top American last year and missed the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon on February 3 due to a plantar injury, didn’t get the dream redemption race she was aiming for. But there’s a reason she chose Boston as the exclamation point to this Olympic year—and she got back just as much in return.
“I really think I had the most fun out there,” Bates said at the finish line, Modelo in hand. “I love running so much. It meant a lot to my dad. My dad passed away in 2016, and he was always so proud of me and didn’t care what I did, as long as I was passionate about something. He would always write on a Post-It note every morning when I had a race, ‘Run hard, have fun, I love you.’ And that was just running through my head the whole time today, just run hard and have fun. And it was so fun.”
Hall, meanwhile, chose to celebrate her 41st birthday by competing in the Boston Marathon on the same day—just 72 days after her brilliant yet bittersweet fifth-place at the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon.
“I’m obsessed with this race,” Hall said. “I told my agent, if I make the [U.S. Olympic] team, I’m running. If I don’t make the team, I’m running. I just didn’t want to miss it. I really enjoy having a race that’s not necessarily a time trial, I think it gives us Americans a big advantage, especially with the hometown crowd.”
The Harvard of Marathons
To Hall’s point, the lore around this race transcends the fact that, at 128 years old, it’s the oldest marathon in the world. For one, the unique point-to-point, net downhill but hilly course favors racers over time-trialers. Next, the unpredictable New England weather coming on the coattails of winter can lead to both unseasonable heat and cold that serve as an equalizer. Both variables lend for intrigue and attract some of the most dynamic marathoners at the pointy end of the sport.
“Any time there’s a weather element that comes into the equation that’s better for me,” Linden said before the race. “Anything that’s going to slow down raw speed, that’s positive for me.”
The prestige of running well in Boston is why repeat winner Hellen Obiri—who competes for Kenya and lives with her family in Boulder, Colorado, where she’s coached by Dathan Ritzenhein of the On Athletics Club—has firmly established herself as the best marathoner in the world—despite her relatively modest personal best of 2:21:38.
“Last year was a little bit easier because I came from nowhere,” Obiri said. “But this year I did everything I can to win.”
In addition to trying—and succeeding—to become the first back-to-back women’s champion in 19 years, Obiri had the pressure of trying to get the nod from Athletics Kenya for a spot on the Kenyan Olympic team this summer in Paris. She should be feeling pretty confident in her chances now.
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Of course, the prestige of the Boston Marathon transcends to the 30,000 competitors, including the 22,000 runners competing who hit the qualification mark to toe the line. (The remaining equally-as-worthy 8,000 runners raised at least $12,000 each for charity.) Love it or hate it, Boston is the only marathon in the country with qualification standards, and even then you’re not guaranteed entry. With more than 33,000 runners hitting that elusive BQ this past year, runners had to dip five and a half minutes under the mark to get an acceptance letter.
The high bar to entry is why the Boston Marathon is, to use a framework the locals will understand, the Harvard of marathons. And it’s why even 2,000 miles away in Boulder, Colorado, you’ll see runners in their coveted Boston Marathon finisher jackets year-round.
So Much More Than a Race
Speaking of the Boston Marathon finisher jackets, they were out in equal abundance to the pink and white blossoms on the trees in Boston this past week. Yellow, blue, black, and pink unicorn-emblazoned apparel teemed around the running path next to the Charles River and dominated innumerable shakeout runs leaving from Newbury Street in the days preceding the race.
Forget 30,000 racers. The running world descends upon Boston over the weekend leading up to Marathon Monday. There’s races on top of races, including the 10,000-person Boston Athletic Association 5K around the Boston Public Garden and the Invitational Mile featuring local middle school and high school runners from the towns of the marathon and a pros field.
And for the last several years, there’s been an unsanctioned marathon, 26.True (hosted by the Pioneers Run Crew), a race that celebrates the culture and neighborhoods of the city. Mayor Michelle Wu went as far as to call it the “real” Boston marathon at the start in Roxbury this year. Pioneer cheer squads popped up all over the city both for 26.True on Saturday, and at mile 22 at the Boston Marathon on Monday. While Boston is a relatively small city by size, there’s room for everyone to celebrate running here.
Beyond racing, there’s an entire cottage industry of running and non-running events in the days leading up to the race: a Nike women’s event with new pro Gabbi Rooker, happy hours with former marathon American record holder Keira D’Amato, and running legend Joan Benoit Samuelson, Tracksmith and Bandit, a New Balance run with 2014 Boston Marathon champ Meb K, Asics Bingo Night hosted by running comedian Laura Green and featuring Olympian Clayton Young, and an Under Armor panel with marathon runner-up Sharon Lokedi, to name a few. The schedule of events and runs is so robust, you can’t possibly attend everything even if you aren’t racing and trying to stay off your feet. (And that’s not including the packed line-up at the official race expo.)
Running along the Charles during a 500-person Asics shake out run on Sunday, Sheridan Bauman, mother to triplet girls and competing in her 14th Boston Marathon, said it’s her mom who brings her back year after year.
“It’s the best day of the year,” the 54-year-old from Greenwitch, Connecticut said. “The first year, 2011, the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, the Celtics were good, and at Fenway the Red Sox won on Marathon Monday and I was hooked.”
“In 2012 it was hot as you-know-what, and my mother pulled me back off the bus [to the start] because she was worried,” Bauman said. “And she turned me around and she put her hands on my shoulders and she said, ‘When it gets hard you run with your heart.’ I remembered that when I turned on Hereford, and it’s proven true every year since.”
Bauman’s mother has since passed away, and she told this story while running stride-for-stride with Amy Perry, also a mother of three going for her fifth finish, whom she befriended at this race in 2019. They checked off those 14th and sixth finishes, respectively, in 3:35:11 and 3:47:07.
The Greatest Day in the Greatest Sports City
Like the running community, the greater sporting community rallies around the Boston Marathon like nothing else. The Boston Marathon, after all, is a big reason local Mainer and running icon Joan Benoit Samuelson got into the sport.
“My mother grew up at the 15-mile mark, and she never let us forget that either,” Samuelson said before the race.
“My first Boston was in 1979 sight unseen, and I really didn’t know what I was doing. So the fact that I was able to beat the favorite, who was Patti Catalano at the time, now Patti Dillon, by passing her at the top of Heartbreak Hill was something I wasn’t expecting to do. And I was still waiting for the hills, and I asked the guy running next to me, ‘So where are these fabled Heartbreak Hills?’ And he said, ‘Lady, you just passed them.’ So I found that the fans, the spectators, leveled the playing field, so to speak, so I didn’t even notice the hills.”
For one day each year, Title Town elevates running into the highest echelon of sport. The Boston Red Sox shed their traditional red and white garb for Boston Marathon electric blue and gold on the weekend and day of the race. Because yes, just as reliably as the Boston Marathon falling on Patriots’ Day, a Massachusetts holiday on the third Monday of April, the Sox also play at home that day.
At Fenway Park the day before the race, when Red Sox relief pitcher Kenley Jensen struck out Angels Luis Rengifo and Mike Trout to end the game with a Sox 5-4 victory, in the words of Neil Diamond blaring over the loudspeakers after the 7th inning along with a chorus of several thousand runners in attendance, “Good times never felt so good.”
The collective Boston sports spirit embeds itself to the actual race, with Grand Marshall and former New England Patriots tight end and future Hall of Famer Rob Gronkowski saying on the pre-race live stream that the race “means a lot to the city of Boston, and it means a lot to myself.”
“It’s an amazing honor to be here and to represent New England, and this is a world-wide event as well. It’s going to remind me a lot of the parades we had here” Gronkowski said in reference to the three NFL championship parades through downtown Boston that he enjoyed as a Patriot. “Let me tell you, those were the best experiences of my life, and today will remind me of those days. I just love the energy that New England has, that Boston has.”
He bopped a mile over to Fenway later that morning to throw the first pitch.
Meanwhile in the race, Zdeno Chára, 14-year captain of the Boston Bruins who led the team to a Stanley Cup in 2011, ran his second Boston and seventh marathon—all over the last 12 months. This time the 6-foot-9-inches hockey star raised over $25,000 for Team Hoyt, the foundation formed by the legendary wheelchair racing duo of Dick and Rick Hoyt. Hailing from Holland, Massachusetts, the father-son duo was renowned for racing over 1,000 running races and triathlons, including 30 Boston Marathons, Rick’s favorite race. Rick was known for saying to his dad, “Dad, when I’m running, it feels like I’m not handicapped.”
“It was incredible, this is the best race. You have fans right there with you, cheering you on. It’s the best marathon in the world,” Chára said. “All the credit goes to the fans because they make this race so special.”
Chára grew inspired to one day run this race after the horrific Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.
“Not to put any more emphasis on that, but to see how the whole city came together to help each other,” Chára said. “We all stuck together. That really made an impact that one day I would be running Boston.”
Boston Strong
A shadow from that infamous 2013 Patriots’ Day still looms over the city. Sirens set people on edge. Race security makes it nearly impossible to navigate around the finish line. But as Chára illuminates, that tragedy brought out the best of humanity, too, and it’s still on display.
In 2014, Meb Keflezighi entered the Boston Marathon to honor the four victims, Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell, Lu Lingzi, and Sean Collier, of the previous year. With those four names written on his bib, he went on to win the race—becoming the first American man to do so in 31 years. He celebrated the 10-year anniversary of his win by racing once again this year, finishing in 3:08:58.
“I was the underdog in 2014. The city embraced me, and I feel proud to represent and to give a little bit of hope after that horrific moment in 2013, and to get that victory with Krystle, Martin, Sean, and Lingzi on my bib, it kind of connected everybody and I feel blessed to have that opportunity,” Keflezighi said.
“Boston is one of the toughest courses, if not the toughest. But the crowd supported me. I stopped many times” Keflezighi said. “Those people who can’t run, I ran for you today.”
Finisher by finisher, Boston Marathon competitors whittle away at the pain inflicted 11 years ago. Time and again a runner would collapse as they rounded the turn onto Boylston, and fellow competitors would scoop them up and carry them across the line.
One such good samaritan was Zach Prescott, who shifted tactics after he saw his goal of running under 2:30 fade away. When he saw someone go down 50 meters from the finish, he helped scooped them up and across the line.
“I went out for a personal goal and that went out the window, so the last four miles became about enjoying it and helping people out. Best day in the world,” said Prescott, who’s from nearby Weymouth and ran cross country and track and field for Boston University. “It’s the best place in the world. This is the best place to be in the city at the best time.”
Several hours later as the last waves of runners streamed into Boston, local Duxbury resident Patrick Clancy, 33, crossed the line of his first marathon in 3:59:19, visibly emotional. He raised more than $77,000 for Boston Children’s Hospital, which treated his three children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, a baby, before they tragically passed away after their mother, who was suffering from postpartum psychosis, allegedly strangled them.
Patrick Clancy ran the 26.2 mile race while wearing the names of his late children Cora, Dawson and Callan on his bib. ❤️https://t.co/ktdMIiiLHb pic.twitter.com/NHeyjYWCs4
— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 16, 2024
“I love my kids, they’re wonderful people. They had a lot of friends, everybody loved them,” said Clancy, whose yellow and blue checkered singlet sported a handwritten sign on the back reading: “In memory of Cora, Dawson & Callan. Every mile, every day.” Cora’s blue bow was tied to the left strap, and he wore a wristband from Dawson and a bracelet of Callan’s. “They had short lives, but they had good lives.”
Clancy said he ran the Boston Marathon as a form of therapy, and along the sidelines everyone was cheering his name despite it not being on his bib. “In many ways, I’m just trying to be more like them. Their passion in life was infectious,” Clancy wrote of his kids on his donation page. “With Cora, Dawson, and Callan in spirit, see you at the finish line.”